


Unfinished Symphony

by MissVictoriaRose



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Multi, SHIELD is sketchy, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tony Stark Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11726046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissVictoriaRose/pseuds/MissVictoriaRose
Summary: It began as an itch, the kind that you can’t scratch away, between her shoulder and her neck on her left side.“Father?” Toni questioned barely over a whisper. Her eyes locked on her feet, as she refused to meet his eyes.“You have a soul mark,” he explained, “of a dead man.”





	1. The Daughter

She did it. It worked. It took eight wires, two batteries, and three broken light bulbs. But it worked! The fourth try of a 65 watt light bulb turned on, lighting up the room—because she had successfully wired it to do so. She picked up the tray she had been working on and hurried out of her bedroom. She ran, as steady as she could, down the three sets of stairs and the five different hallways, until she reached her father’s study.

 

She wanted to be just like him when she grew up. He was her father. He was an engineer, turned inventor, turned investor, turned weapons creator. He was a World War II hero. He could pull ideas out of thin air and revolutionize an entire industry all on a whim. The nation loved him. He was always on TV or in the magazines. He was her hero.

 

She knocked on the door of his private office. She shouldn’t. It was against the rules to bother her father while he was busy. But he was always working, and she made the lightbulb turn on. He would want to know. He would want to smile with her. He would probably show her what else she could do. He’d let her into his secret world of tinkering and the intriguing blue paper that held secrets no one else got to know.

 

She knocked again. Her father would want to know. He’d want to see that she was smart, like him. The book had said ‘advanced,' and she had done it. She might have relied a little too heavily on the pictures, but she knew it was quite a feat of accomplishment. He’d want to know his little girl was smart, no—intelligent, like her father.

 

He would want to know, that’s why she turned the knob and pushed the door open. That’s why she walked into her father’s office.

 

“What, Antonia? What is so important that you would bother me when you know I’m working?” her father asked.

 

He didn’t turn around to look at her. He barely even mumbled out the words to acknowledge her. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

 

“I just,” Toni stuttered. “I made something and—“

 

“You made something?” her father asked. His tone was biting. It told her not to answer, not to draw his attention away from whatever he was working on at the moment.

 

She didn’t answer. Her father wasn’t happy. He didn’t want to know.

 

“Spit it out, girl. What did you make?”

 

“I-”

 

The tingling began as an itch, the kind that you can’t scratch away. It was right between her shoulder and neck on her left side. She set her tray full of the electronic circuit she designed at her feet. She looked back up at her father, at his stiff back and hunched shoulders, and took a few steps towards the table he was working on now. She grabbed the edge of the table and balanced on the tips of her toes, like too many ballet classes have taught her to do.

 

“It’s an electrical circuit board. I turned the light on—“ Toni tried to explain, attempting to peer over his arm to get a better look at what he was doing. Her right hand went back to the irritated skin between her neck and her left shoulder.

 

She scratched. Her nails ran over the small section of the white button-down school uniform shirt she had yet to change out of. It was part of the required uniform of the Chapin School, a private preparatory for girls in New York City. Initially, the outfit was too big for her smaller than average frame, but her mother had taken her to get it tailored. Her mother hated when things didn’t fit, just as the woman hated when things were out of place, or when things didn’t go her way. Toni’s uniform was never out of place. Neither was her curled hair or the white bow that kept it out of her face.

 

He slammed his pliers down on the metal work table and turned to face her. His brown eyes were dark, almost black. They matched his hair that looked more grey than the chocolate shade she had inherited from him. He had on dark slacks and a white undershirt, both already stained with grease. His hands were gloveless. It was a quirk of his. Gloves were too bulky. He hated anything that stopped him from feeling what he was touching. He never wore gloves when he didn’t absolutely have to. Then again, he never did anything he didn’t absolutely have to.

 

“Is that supposed to impress me?” he asked. His voice was challenging, an apparent threat.

 

“I-I…” Toni stuttered again. Her nails were digging harshly into the itch that just wouldn’t go away. “I just wanted—“

 

“To what? Bother me?” he looked down at the light bulb that still lit from the circuitry board. “At least you aren’t a complete failure—Will you stop that?” her father demanded.

 

He yanked on her arm, pulling her roughly towards him. A wet snap bounced off the walls of her father’s office, turned at-home laboratory. Neither of them paid any attention to what had just happened. He pulled on the collar of her shirt, attempting to see what was bothering her.

 

His face changed. The crinkles around his lips smoothed out, and his nose stopped flaring. Instead, he stood there, with one hand still wrapped around Toni's shirt collar and the other around her upper arm. He opened his mouth, muttering the same words over and over again.

 

“Steve Grant Rogers. Steve Rogers.”

 

“Father?” Toni questioned barely over a whisper. Her eyes locked on her feet, as she refused to meet his eyes.

 

“You have a soul mark,” he explained, “of a dead man.”


	2. The Prodigy

She was four years old when her soul mark appeared in the name of a man who had been long dead. She was four years old when her father had dislocated her elbow. She was four years old when Jarvis promised her that none of it was her fault.

 

Nursemaid’s elbow, the doctor had called it when her father explained how she had been complaining of pain after playing with friends.

 

“Kids will be kids,” the doctor had said to her father.

 

They shared a laugh.

 

She doesn’t have any friends. Jarvis promised that wasn’t her fault either.

 

Her father had left early the next morning to Washington D.C. for work. He had a new kick in his step. He carried a brighter smile and kissed her on the forehead before he left. He had been muttering about Captain America, and something about a search and renewing a program. She didn’t understand it, but that didn’t matter because he had kissed her forehead before he left. He had never bothered saying goodbye before.

 

That left Toni smiling. Not even her mother shoving her out the door for the driver to take her off to school could dampen Toni’s smile. But happiness never lingers in the Stark household, and Toni’s father didn’t come home that night. She and her mother had dinner, just the two of them. Her mother didn’t touch the chief’s grilled salmon, only the wine glass. Toni didn’t attempt at conversation, too busy trying to figure out what else could make her father happy.

 

He never did look at the electronic circuit, but he noticed her. Toni wanted more of that.

 

When her mother excused her from dinner, she snuck away into her father’s study. Ms. Ana Jarvis, the governess of Stark Manor, had caught her going through her father’s textbooks. He had kept a whole shelf—every space available filled with thick books—and she was determined to read them all. If she knew her father’s books, then maybe she could understand like her father understood things. Ms. Ana had found her with a stack of books pulled down. Toni froze at the sight of the woman, holding the open book tightly to her chest.

 

“What do you think you're doing?” Ms. Ana asked.

 

Toni, frightened the woman would tell her mother, quickly explained that she wanted to learn everything she could.

 

Ms. Ana told her she needed to start with the basics.

 

That train of thought had resulted in a child’s book on engineering. It had cartoons on the cover, and every other sentence rhymed. Toni used the pages to cover the floor to paint the outer structure that would hold her circuit board. Ms. Ana was not amused, but she did acquire a basic engineering textbook for Toni, on the promise that Toni would ask her questions on anything Toni couldn’t understand.

 

“There is a good possibility that I may not know the answers either,” Ms. Ana told her, “but I’ll know where to find them. It’s a dangerous thing to be ignorant.”

 

Toni took that lesson to heart and studied everything she could. Most of it came from her father’s study, which remained peacefully unoccupied while he was away. Jarvis and Ms. Ana helped her go systematically through the books. They covered everything from fundamental algebraic formulas to advanced multivariable game theory. The subject ranged from mathematics to nanoscale science to business analytic principles. She planned to read them all.

 

Her father started to spend a lot of time away. He hadn’t come home that first night. He hadn’t come back at all that week. Only to show up for the weekend. Which proved to be enough time for him to swoop into town, check the soul mark on her shoulder, demand to know what she’s been up to since the circuit board–reading, but that wasn’t enough for him.

 

He got into a screaming match with her mother that resulted in a broken vase and glass shards all over the floor.

 

Then, he left again.

 

“I just need to be better,” Toni told Ms. Ana and Jarvis. “I just need to be better, then he’ll stick around more. Then, he'll love me again.”

 

After the drawn out argument between her parents, her mother started leaving, too.

 

Her mother was never gone as long as her father was. She stayed in the city. She preferred galas and charity dinners over spending time with her only daughter.

 

Toni tried hard not to take it personally, her mother was a dedicated and essential woman in many regards, but it’s hard not to take things personally when you're sitting at the dinner table alone.

 

Toni wasn’t a stranger to sitting alone. She sat alone in the backseat of a town car on the way to school. She sat alone in the front corner of crowded classrooms full of older, but seemingly average, students. She sat alone outside during lunchtime munching on whatever the family chef packed for her that day, and she sat alone in the dining room of her family's manor.

 

To escape all the aloneness, Toni would read. She wouldn’t just read. She would study. She would work on school work. Then she would work on the problems found in the back of her father’s textbooks. She would work mathematical equations over and over until the steps become second hand and she didn’t have to keep looking up what to do next. She memorized every theory she stumbled across, muttering it to herself over and over. Sometimes it reminded her of her father, who would always talk himself through his train of thoughts when she would watch him working in his lab. Sometimes her rehearsed and reiterated words sounded more like a lifeline, a focus in the otherwise silent house.

 

Toni's aloneness had intermissions of Mrs. Ana and Mr. Jarvis, who were for some reason determined not to let Toni waste away between the pages of her books. They would drag her out of her father’s office and dress her up like a person, then send her out into the world ‘to be social,’ which was code for ‘your mother said you were going to be there. Therefore you must be there.’ This cover ridiculous, and often redundant, things such as her mother’s social brunches, charity events, school, ballet class, galas, and worse, playdates.

 

Things continued this way. Her father traveled, consulting for the government. Her mother did what socialites with rich husbands did, appearing on Page Six wearing the latest fashion. All while Toni kept to herself, alone in the silent house.

 

The aloneness of her childhood had the unsurprising effect of allowing Toni to climb the grades quickly. Skipping one, sometimes two, almost three levels at a time.

 

Inspiration from her reading lead Toni to invent, drawing on her own special blue paper. She built, using her father’s tools like her father would. Collecting the same burns and scars on her hands.

 

He hugged her when he saw the small flying drone. He yelled at her when he couldn't read her handwriting scribbled on the blueprints, and he all but ignored her to add his own final touches, a few small missiles, to the drone. Then, he left.

 

She found an empty office and a cold lab the next morning, her father nowhere to be seen. Her new pride of an invention missing as well.


	3. The Heir

Toni received a new understanding on life and her high school diploma both a week after her fourteenth birthday.

 

It started with her father's anger, as many things tended to begin with as of late. He was in his office, studying Toni's latest invention. He held pages of printed code in his hand as he quizzed Toni on every aspect of its function. It had been a side project of hers, to simplify the needless complex declarative language that her machine learning textbooks favored. The code her father held in his hands had been created for a more general-purpose function, applying an imperative syntax for computer programming.

 

She called it Code S.

 

Her father called it a disappointment, if not a disaster.

 

Which led Toni to do something she has never done before.

 

She argued back, pointing out the possibilities of a simplified code that dealt with knowledge-based reasoning. She listed out ways the language could be used in easy to understand statements of, 'if this, then, that.' He voice rose with every valid point her father heartlessly dismissed.

 

"Is this what you waste your time on?" he demanded an answer. "Is this what that damn school has wasted their time teaching you? You think you're good enough to just create a new programming language? Who the hell is going care what you did?"

 

Yes, Toni wanted to shout. Yes, this is what I wasted my time on. This is what I learned from your books, father. I did it, Toni wanted to scream, doesn't that make me good enough?

 

Instead, she left her father's office, quiet and heartbroken.

 

She didn't know how to fix the ache in her chest or the heaviness in her bones that had set in after her father's words.

 

Ever since Toni can remember, everything she had worked so hard to accomplished had been for her father's approval, for his pride in her.

 

For him to care.

 

For him to be the one that is going to care what she did.

 

The following day was graduation, both of her parents were seated, and surprisingly sober, in the audience. Toni walked across the stage with her head held high, in a dress her mother had chosen.

 

The Dean of her private school shook her hand and congratulated her as if it was any surprise she was valedictorian.

 

It was what was expected of her after all.

 

Not as if her parents actually cared for the contents of her speech, only that it was their daughter speaking.

 

Toni wondered if she would ever learn how to simply not care like her father did.

 

MIT had called a week after that. The coming fall she had an apartment, a loaded schedule full of advanced classes to attend, and an entirely new world to explore. She had a new world that didn’t already hate her for ruined grade curves and always having the correct answers. Here she had a clean slate. She was a new face among many. She had a place away from home.

 

She could be someone new.

 

 

MIT was the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself. Simple white bows became a teased hot-mess of curls. The school uniform became skinny jeans and band t-shirts or ones with borderline offensive words printed on them. Her father got her a band-aid of sorts, ‘for your mark, to keep it covered. Always keep it cover’. Jarvis bought her a leather jacket. Ms. Ana bought her the first pair of heels Toni ever owned. Toni wore them everywhere. She looked older than she did a few weeks ago. Toni felt older, too. Maybe, in a way, she was older.

 

But not old enough to know better.

 

James Rhodes was a teddy bear, and Tiberius Stone was a snake.

 

Toni met James first, in her Mechanical Engineering Systems Design class. They sat next to each other on the front row. He was twenty and in his third year of college. He had big plans for the future and often talked about conquering the Air Force after he graduates. His shirt was always clean, and he doodled airplanes along the margins of his notes. He argued with her over the benefits of learning origami and called her father an idiot right to her face.

 

“We're friends," she told him during the third week of class, "and I’m going to call you Rhodey.”

 

About a week later, she met Tiberius. Toni knew that from the moment he wormed his way into being her lab partner for the cutthroat Nuclear Physics class that he was bad news. He was charming and styled his hair like her father did, combed back and parted of center. Tiberius was only about three years older than her and had such confidence in his own skin that made Toni envious. Yet, he gave her attention, and, oh, was that attention addicting.

 

He would bother her, maybe flirt with her. Sometimes he would shoot miniature paper footballs at her while she was working on their class assignments. He told her she was wasting her pretty face in a boring textbook. Sometimes, he would even pull the book away from her just to ask her meaningless questions, like if she had to guess where in the world would one find a wild gerbil, or how does one actually acquire a license to kill. That would then segue into an actual conversation about the places they each been and favorite memories. None of the stories included parents, not that she ever felt the need to the point that out.

 

But he would always bother her with a smile on his face, and his questions would be about her. He would still be looking at her, with that stupidly charming smile on his face.

 

“Come to the party with me tonight,” he asked her one afternoon as the rest of the class was packing up to leave.

 

“A party?” Toni scoffed with a roll of her eyes, a false bravado of indifference. “How plebeian.”

 

“You’d have fun. I’d make sure of it. Common, Little Stark, you need a break from all those boring textbooks anyway,” he said.

 

That was how she found herself at a house little ways from campus. She didn’t know the owner, and she doubted the owner knew who was at his residence tonight.

 

“I don’t know,” she hesitated halfway up the stone pathway to the front door.

 

People moved around her, hollering and laughing.

 

“You worry too much,” he told her, nudging her forwards up the pathway.

 

“It’s not paranoia if they're really out to get you,” she muttered, relenting too easily.

 

He laughed and pulled the door open for her, as she followed him inside. It was an ostentatious house if one looked past the broken glass on the floor and the music that shook the walls.

 

Tiberius greeted a few people with slaps on the shoulder and complicated handshakes. A few people eyed her a little cautiously, but none said anything.

 

“This will do for now,” Tiberius said, handing her a red solo cup with some clear liquid poured inside.

 

The smell burned her nose. The drink had too many small bubbles for it to be water, and not enough for it to be soda. Toni stared at it skeptically.

 

Tiberius drank a big gulp out of his own cup, as another woman draped her arm across his shoulders.

 

"Ti, baby, where have you been?" the girl cooed in a baby voice that grated on Toni's nerves.

 

But the girl was pretty, Toni couldn't deny that. She was beautiful in every way Toni wasn't. Tall, with just the right amount of curve compared to Toni's short, frail stature. The girl's hair was artfully pulled up, dyed an unnatural shade of red but flawless none the less it was the complete opposite of Toni's chocolate untamable curls. The girl's hair contrasted beautifully against her pale skin and green eyes.She wore a metallic gold dress that tied behind her neck and stopped barely pass the top of her thighs.

 

It was nothing like Toni's olive skin and plain black dress with three-quarter length sleeves.

 

“Making new friends, baby girl. Whitney, meet Toni Stark. Toni, this is Whitney," Tiberius said, pulling his eyes from the edge of Whitney's dress to look at Toni, and down at her full cup, "Well, are you going to drink that or not?”

 

She took a tentative sip from her cup. Then, at Tiberius' nod, a much larger swallow. It burned all the way down her throat, almost causing her to choke.

 

"Aw, how cute," Whitney said patronizingly, generating another laugh from Tiberius.

 

“That a girl,” he told her, throwing an arm over her shoulder, as the other arm landed on Whitney's shoulder.

 

He pulled her closer to the music, and closer to him.

 

“Drink, dance, enjoy yourself,” he said into her ear, barely hearable over the music.

 

"I don't know how," she admitted as she took another big drink.

 

"That's fine," Whitney said with an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders as she pulled Tiberius into the crowd of dancing people.

 

Toni was left standing there alone, on the edge of the party. She watched Whitney move her body to the beat of the music. She watched as Tiberius' attention only on Whitney and how he chased each shift of her body with his hands, as if whatever he did, he couldn't get enough of her.

 

Toni let her gaze wander over the others dancing. Most of the girls here were dressed like Whitney, with their legs long and bare. There wasn't a girl dancing that didn't have a guy's individual attention.

 

She stayed there on the side of the party, drink in hand. More people joined as the crowd started to get closer to her.

 

Toni took another drink of her drink. She let the burn distract her and the alcohol loosened her up, allowing her to stop thinking. She went with the flow, moved with it. She rubbed up against people she has never met before. Toni let a stranger wrap an arm around her waist as she tried to mimic how she had seen Whitney dance.

 

Tiberius' hands wrapped around her arms as he grabbed her from the stranger and yanking her to him.

 

“You're supposed to be mine tonight,” he said into her ear.

 

"I thought you were Whitney's," she half questioned half stated.

 

He didn't answer her. Instead, he pulled her closer to him, with her back meeting his front. He wrapped his hand around her neck, as the other rested on her hip. He didn’t squeeze, but his hand still laid there—like a warning or a collar. Tiberius is a good bit taller than her, with broad shoulders and soft blond hair. The way he fit around her and was able to block out most of the other people. She felt safe with him. It was a heady feeling that sunk into her bones and in her mind. She didn’t question it. Not when Tiberius lead her up the stairs, and through a door, he had to knock in a particular sequence for an invited inside.

 

“T,” Toni said hesitantly as she looked around the room.

 

There were a few other is the room, in various states of undress. Whitney was laying on top of the bed, in her underwear.

 

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

 

She looked at him, and his icy blue eyes and nodded her head.

 

He pulled her closer towards the bed.

 

“Don’t over think it,” Whitney whispered in her ear, holding out awhite pill.

 

Toni opened her mouth and Whitney to fed it to her.

 

It was euphoric; the intensity of the dark wood furniture, the feeling of scratchy grey bed sheets against her skin and how they seemed to liquify between her fingers, the feeling that danced up her spine—like cotton clouds forming in her brain.

 

Tiberius touched her. He dragged his calloused hands against her skin. The cold air chased his fingertips, and Tiberius followed it with his tongue. It was a dance of fire and ice on her very bones, and when he dug his nails into her flesh—she purred.


	4. The Friend

She woke up the next morning alone, feeling wrung out and sore. She put her dress back on from last night and carried her shoes in her hand as she searched for a phone. Toni called herself a cab, and decided, for her sanity, that last night never happened.

 

If only the universe were so kind.

 

The cab driver put the car in drive and managed to get five inches away from the curb before someone was pounding on the side of the car door.

 

Toni looked up to see Tiberius Stone.

 

“No,” she said as he opened the door. He pushed her over, making room for him to get in the cab. “I’m not talking to you.”

 

Tiberius ordered the driver to drive, handing him a stack of bills.

 

“You left me,” he said. "That was rather rude."

 

“I trusted you,” Toni said, whether it was accusatory or defensive, she couldn't tell.

 

“And here I showed you the time of your life, is that how you're going to treat me?” he asked in a fake offense.

 

Toni scoffed and turned to look out the window, away from Tiberius, “Your humility is inspiring.”

 

“You're saying that was a lie?” he challenged. Toni could see his eye brawls wiggle in the reflection of the car window.

 

She rolled her eyes at him but leaned against his shoulder during the ride all the same.

 

That was the start of… well, something.

 

Toni didn’t know what to call it. They weren’t together in the Hollywood romance since. They didn’t hold hands or go on dates. But he would drag her along on the weekends, and they would hang out at some house that belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend.

 

And where Tiberius could be found, Whitney was not far off.

 

"You've got all the money in the world, why do you dress like that?" Whitney asked, her eyes roaming over Toni's form.

 

They were standing in Toni's closet. Whitney had offered to help Toni find an outfit for tonight's party. But so far, she had pulled out dress after dress to hold up between Toni and the mirror, only to discard them on the floor.

 

"I happen to like dressing like this," Toni turned away from the mirror, crossing her arms over her chest as if to protect the stained Black Sabbath t-shirt she was wearing.

 

"Don't get me wrong," Whitney continued, walking around Toni to face her. "It's cute, in a teenage rebellion sort of way. But why choose that when you could be wearing, I don't know, the latest from Dior or Chanel."

 

"I don't care about that stuff," Toni tried to explain. "I always get messy in the lab anyway, who cares what I'm wearing."

 

Whitney tilted her head in almost a condescending fashion, "We're going to a party tonight, darling. Right now you look like a child, like some bratty teenager trying to 'stick it' to daddy in skinny jeans and black leather. Mark my words, no one cares what a bratty teenager has to say."

 

"You know I'm not some bratty teenager," Toni defended herself.

 

Whitney shrugged her shoulders as she made her way back to Toni's hanging dresses, "But you are a teenager. It's weird for Ti and me to be hanging out with a teenager."

 

Whitney looked back over at Toni, who was staring at her, "I like hanging out with you, and I'm just trying to look out for you. but you need to update your wardrobe."

 

Toni looked from Whitney, and the short lace dress she was wearing, to the mirror, "With Dior and Chanel?"

 

"I'll help," Whitney offered, "In the meantime, you can wear my dress, and I'll wear a button down shirt of yours. Want me to show you how to do your makeup?"

 

Whitney's dress had a sweetheart neckline that showed off Toni's collarbone.

 

“You’ve got a soul mark,” he said hours later that night.

 

He was staring at the skin-colored covering on her bare shoulder. They were on the roof, just the two of them, waiting to watch the sunrise.

 

"Do you have one?" Toni asked, a little more timidly than she'd like.

 

"Nah," he answered, sucking in a deep breath from the rolled up paper. In it was something that made Toni's lungs burn every time she inhaled. "I'm part of the 99% of the world that doesn't have one."

 

"Some call it evolution, did you know that?" she asked, pulling at the hem seams of her dress. "They say that most people have moved past needing a soulmate."

 

"They also say soulmates have a bound so powerful that it can circumvent death."

 

Toni laughed. It was a hollow and ragged sound, even to her own ears.

 

“What a joke,” she told him as she pulled the suit jacket she stole from him over her shoulders to hide what they both already knew was there.

 

He handed her the white rolled stick he was smoking. Toni looked at it skeptically but took it from him all the same.

 

“How so?” he asked as he put his hands behind his head and laid back on the roof.

 

Toni put the stick to her lips and inhaled, then choked on a cough.

 

He laughed lightly at her. His chuckles dying off as she answered.

 

“Mine's dead,” she remarked without looking at him, "So, if I were you, I'd go with the evolution story. That you're above such ridiculous nonsense likefated perfect love."

 

“Love is a social construct, anyway,” he said looking at her. "I prefer allies and partners, maybe even friends."

 

"Are we friends?” Toni asked.

 

Tiberius leaned over and kissed her on the lips, and that was that. He never asked again, and she never brought it up.

 

Three months passed before she thought about the name on her shoulder again.

 

“We’re going to fail,” Rhodey said, wringing his hands together as he watched her rework calculations. Rhodey had a name, too. It was written in a sloppy cursive that started around the middle of his forearm and ended in the space between his thumb and index finger. Toni couldn’t make out the name. Sometimes she thought about asking, but she never did.

 

They were hanging out at the library, trying to get in some last study hours before finals week. Toni was sitting at a desk, working on a mathematical problem that had nothing to do with any of her classes or the exams coming up. Rhodey paced back and forth behind her. Sometimes she would call out problems from the textbook. He always spits out the right answer, after a moment or two.

 

“We are not going to fail,” she told him without looking up.

 

“You might not, fairy dust, but the rest of us mere humans? We’re going to fail,” he told her, his voice was a little farther away.

 

“You have an ‘A’ in the class, second highest only to me. Why do you think you’re going to fail?” she asked her calmly curious voice at complete opposites of his frantic ramblings.

 

“I’ve got some buddies who have already taken this class,” Rhodey told her his voice closer this time, coming from over her left shoulder, “And they say that the final has to be done using the mathematical computers, the same ones you would use in real life.”

 

Toni gives him a shrug of the shoulders, “We were shown how to use them in class. I don’t see the problem, platypus. ”

 

“The problem is that we’ve only used those computers like a handful of times,” he said.

 

She sat the pencil down and spun in her chair to face him.

 

“You’re really worried about this?” she asked honestly.

 

“Yes!” he said, slamming his hands down on the library desk. "And I don't know what I'm going to do!"

 

“Alright, let’s go practice, then,” she said as if it was the logical answer.

 

Toni started to pack up her things.

 

“Are you kidding me?” Rhodey checked his watch, “It’s three in the morning, the labs are closed.”

 

Toni gave him a look, “Are you really going to let that stop you?”

 

He looked back at her, staring at her at her as if he had never seen her before.

 

“You are either going to be the best thing that ever happened to me or the worst," he said, running a hand down his face.

 

“Oh, buttercup, we both know I’m a fucking gift," she winked as she pushed open the library door.

 

They made their way to a small building two blocks over. Tony typed in a code, and the door popped open with a beep. Rhodey started to ask, but she held a finger to her lips. All the lights were off, and the only form of security was that the elevator only went down, not up. After six flights of stairs, and three long hallways, Toni easily picked the lock to the computer labs.

 

She pushed open the double doors and waved her arms in an exaggerated fashion as if to announce their entrance. Rhodey rolled his eyes at her antics but followed her into the room all the same. She helped him power up one of the large computers. Then spent the next 3 hours quizzing him on how to operate it. Sometimes she would purposely mess him up, just to badger him on how he would fix it.

 

By the morning, she was half surprised he hadn't strangled her.

 

A week later he made a perfect score on his final in Mechanical Engineering Systems Design, and the rest, as they say, was history.


	5. The Master

Toni Stark was retrieved from the MIT campus at 10 o’clock, Friday morning, at the start of winter break, per her parent’s request. The driver was formal and distant, and the back seat of the Lincoln town car was uncomfortably stiff.

 

She had Rhodey’s phone number written on a scrap piece of paper in her coat pocket, and Tiberius’ written in his scrawly handwriting on the inside of her thigh, underneath her new dress that Whitney had picked out.

 

Despite loose promises to both boys, she had no intention of calling either.

 

Instead, Toni’s focus was on her plans. She had her notebook balanced on her knee as she scribbled metrics and calculations in the margin of a page of old notes. That’s how she spent the five-hour car ride, hunched over her thoughts, dreaming of building her own personal computer.

 

The car finally stopped. The driver opened her door and gave a bow as she exited the vehicle.

 

Mr. Jarvis greeted her at the front door with a smile and a warm hug. He ushered her into the kitchen, where Ms. Ana was cooking.

 

Ana served her a warm bowl of her favorite soup and inquired about how she liked her new school.

 

“It’s a lot bigger than the one before,” Toni told her. “But I love it. They’ve got these labs filled to the ceiling with computers. There’s a whole building dedicated to programming and another for hardware and another for fabrication. I want to build a robot arm next semester. It’s going to have hydraulic pumps, and, if I’m able, I want to attach it to a computer. That way I can program it to think through knowledge-based reasoning. Look,” Toni laid her notebook on the table and pushed it in front of Ana, "It's all a matter of if this, then that styled commands."

 

“That’s lovely dear,” Ana said skimming over the notes, before pushing the notebook back over to Toni, "It sounds like you are really enjoying what your learning there."

 

She ran a hand through Toni’s hair. She had a fond smile on her face.

 

“You’re growing up so fast,” Ana said almost to herself, before changing her focus back to Toni, “What about friends?” Then, she smiled at Toni mischievously, “What about boys?”

 

Toni choked a little on her soup, “Rhodey. James Rhodes, but I call him Rhodey. Stellar person. He wants to fly planes for the Air Force.”

 

Ana nodded her head.

 

“And, theirs Tiberius Stone. He was my lab partner for a class,” Toni shrugged attempting to be nonchalant, “He’s cool.”

 

“Stone?” Ana asked.

 

“Yeah, that’s his last name. Why?” Toni asked with the spoon lifted halfway to her mouth.

 

“Name sounds familiar, that’s all. Finish your food,” Ana said.

 

Toni did. She kissed Ana on the cheek as a ‘thanks for lunch,' before darting out of the kitchen to the room she had turned into her own study and makeshift lab. She had a computer to build.

 

That’s where her father found her four hours later. Toni was bent over the workbench with a screwdriver in one hand and pliers in another.

 

“What do you think you are doing?” her father asked.

 

Toni dropped her screwdriver and spun around to face him.

 

“I’m building a computer,” she told him.

 

“What is that crap all over your face?” he asked.

 

The change in conversation caught Toni off guard. She ran a hand down her face and pulled it away showing a clean palm. She looked up at her father with an unspoken question.

 

He reached a hand up and smeared her lipstick across the side of her cheek.

 

“That crap,” he said. “Go wash it off. We’ve got things to do.”

 

Toni wanted to argue. She wanted to point out that the red lipstick didn’t stop her ability to think. She wanted to tell him that the mascara on her eyes didn’t prevent her from seeing what she was doing. She wanted to him to know that it wasn’t an either-or situation. She could be pretty and girly and still help him–still be like him.

 

But that would have lead to an argument.

 

Instead, she washed her face with warm water and a white towel in her room.

 

“You’ve lost weight,” Peggy Carter said from her doorway.

 

She had a look on her face that Toni couldn’t read. At least, not in the mirror’s reflection with black mascara running down her face.

 

“Might have gotten a little too caught up in my studies,” Toni told her.

 

Peggy’s eyes snapped to hers in the mirror.

 

“We’re spending the day together tomorrow,” Peggy said.

 

Toni didn’t know where she stood with Peggy. She was something between an aunt Toni saw on rare occasion, and an older sister Toni didn’t know she needed when Peggy actually came around.

 

Toni nodded, and Peggy left because she’s Peggy and sweeps into Toni’s life like a hurricane. She rearranges everything and usually drops some life-changing piece of advice, and then disappears again.

 

Toni finished wiping away the makeup and returned to her dad’s lab. It was empty, and the lights were turned off. She backed out of the room and climbed the two sets of stairs back to the second floor to check his study.

 

Howard was at his desk, looking at a stack of papers. Another man was standing there. One Toni never met before. He was leaning over her father’s shoulder as they looked at notes that were scattered all over his desk. The man had a shiny head and was wearing a tailored suit.

 

“You’re back,” her father said. “Obie, you remember my daughter. Antonia this is Obadiah Stane.”

 

Toni nodded her head in greeting to the other man, before turning her attention back to her father. She felt the man’s eyes linger on her, lingering on certain spots on her body. She shifted in place as she stood by the door. Her arms crossed in front of her, and her shoulders hunched over. She wasn’t sure if she was wanted here. She wasn't sure if she was allowed to be here.

 

Her father dropped the page he was looking at, onto the desk and turned towards her.

 

She raised her head, noticing both older men were looking at her.

 

“So,” her father asked, turning to Obadiah Stane, “You think it’s time to start introducing her to the family business?”

 

Mr. Stane returned to the appraising look he was giving her before.

 

“Is she capable of doing what you do?” he asked.

 

“She will be,” her father said, “She’s attending MIT. I’m sure she learned something of use.”

 

There was a little thrill that raced in her heart at his words. Her father sounded so confident in her abilities. She hated it, as much as she loved it.

 

He lead her and Obadiah down to his private lab, flicking on the lights as he entered right to the table in the center of the room. There is a small missile, with its shell already removed, laying on the table.

 

“This is a nuclear bomb. It’s the most powerful on the market at the moment.” Toni's father explained. “We are going to re-engineer it. Instead of nuclear energy, we are going to use that–” Her father pointed to the far corner of the room, where a glowing cube was displayed proudly.

 

“Is that the–” Toni stuttered.

 

“The Tesseract? Yeah, yes it is.” her father said proudly.

 

Her father made his way over to her. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into him. His clothes smelt of old whiskey, and his breath of vintage scotch.

 

“I found it. A few friends of mine went with me out into the Arctic a few weeks ago. We were looking for Rogers, but we discovered this little beauty instead,” her father explained, dropping the name on her shoulder so casually that it stung. “For the last few days, I’ve been working on a way for it to be America’s edge in the cold war. I think I’ve figured it out.”

 

They work, and they work, and they work. Mr. Stane left before the first-hour mark. They started with taking apart the old bomb, piece by painstaking piece. Then, they ran numbers and equations. They checked and double-checked their work, and each other’s work. It all came down to the nuclear core. They replaced it with a core made from the Tesseract energy.

 

Toni couldn’t tell where it went wrong, only that it went horribly wrong.

 

Her father had the energy core that was extracted from the Tesseract clasped in metal tongs. He was putting it into the correct slot in the bomb.

 

Toni watched his shaking hands and his unfocused eyes. She knew, as strongly as one knows what is about to happen when observing a train speed down a half-finished track, that this was not going to end well.

 

Part of her wanted to see it play out. She wanted to watch him fail. She wanted confirmation that her father was as human and flawed as she was. That he, too, could fail at something.

 

The other part of her wanted to learn. She wanted her father to succeed so that together, they could study the alien artifact, to uncover its secrets, to do more than construct a bomb with it.

 

The core exploded all the same.

 

The force of the explosion slammed her father against the close wall, and Toni was blown backward over one of the workbenches. She landed hard on her back on the table. His tools and other wayward gadgets cut into her skin. The force knocked the table over, banging her head against the concrete floor.

 

Toni caught her father's eye from across the room. She saw his face, his utter disappointment, and anger written so clearly.

 

“What did you do?” he asked.

 

His voice was booming, echoing against the concrete of the room. Toni flinched and made a weak attempt to put more space between them.

 

“Nothing. I didn’t do anything,” Toni told him.

 

She got to her feet, but the way her back stung and pulled told her she was far from okay.

 

“Of course you did something, it failed,” her father went on, walking closer to her, “A fucking disappointment, you couldn’t even get this right. What good would you have been to your dear soulmate?”

 

“You’re drunk,” Toni told him in a strained, emotionless voice.

 

“He’d be disappointed in you, too. He’s probably thankful he never met you,” her father said.

 

“You don’t mean that,” Toni said as her father reached out towards her.

 

He wrapped a hand around her arm and yanked. Toni stumbled and fell to the floor.

 

“What’s there to mean?” her father asked as he yanked her back up.

 

“This is my legacy, a daughter,” he scoffed. “I'm supposed to give you everything I worked so hard to build? I'm meant to hand over my company that is our livelihood and expect you not to screw it up? And you can’t even produce a fucking bomb?”

 

“I can do better,” Toni promised through stuttering words. “I’ll do better.”

 

He grabbed her hair, pulling her head towards his.

 

“You will,” he said, her face just a few inches from his own, the threat in his voice loud and clear.

 

He dragged her by her hair to another workbench. He dropped the destroyed bomb on the table in front of her.

 

“Fix it,” he ordered.

 

He watched as she fumbled with the tools.

 

“Christ sake, you’re a Stark,” he snarled. “Be a Stark. Straighten your spine and build. We’re made of iron, at least us men are.”

 

Toni took a deep breath, then another, and, finally, with steadier hands, she built. Her father hovered over her shoulder and corrected every error and flaw. She finished the bomb in under four hours.

 

“Another,” her father ordered.

 

Scraps of a different kind of bombs dropped in front of her.

 

Again, her father leaned over her shoulder and raised his voice on every mistake. He pointed out every flaw with sharp commentary. This one took her three hours to complete.

 

Toni was shaking, and her vision was blurring. Her hands were burnt and bloodied. Her limbs were shaking with exhaustion. The clock read long past midnight before he let her leave to go to bed.

 

Mr. Jarvis helped cleaned her up and put her to bed. He promised her, as he tucked a thick blanket around her, that what happened in the lab wasn’t her fault.

 

"But, what if it was?" Toni asked him.

 

His hand hovered over the curl that had fallen on her face.

 

"The cruel actions of others are very rarely premeditated, Miss," Mr. Jarvis said.

 

"But, what if I was better? If I hadn't of screwed up. He wouldn't have gotten so angry with me. It's my fault, Mr. Jarvis. It's my fault, and I can do better. I'll do better," she told him, "I promise."

 

Mr. Jarvis tucked the loose curl behind her ear and patted her shoulder, "I know you will, Miss.”


	6. The Tesorina

Peggy is there bright and early the next morning, pulling Toni out of bed.

 

“Get dressed. We are meeting a few friends of mine,” Peggy explained as she tossed Toni a pair of jeans and a Black Sabbath shirt.

 

Toni rolled out of bed onto the floor.

 

“It’s eight in the morning,” Toni said.

 

“Yes, an hour in which the rest of society is already functioning. Would you care to join them?” Peggy asked.

 

Toni grabbed the clothes that had landed on the floor and sluggishly made her way to the bathroom. She splashed her face with some cold water and stripped out of her pajamas. She caught her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was messy, and her collarbone was too pronounced, as were the bottom few ribs, and her hip bones.

 

The blackish bruise in the shape of Howard’s hand stood out against her olive skin. She ran her fingertips over it. Then wrapped her hand around her own arm, cataloging the way her small hand failed to cover the bruised imprint of her father’s.

 

Peggy knocked at the bathroom door. Like a falling sensation before awakening violently, Toni was back in her own head.

 

She pulled her clothes on and exited the bathroom.

 

Peggy was sitting at her vanity, going through her makeup. She handed Toni a tube of mascara.

 

“None of these colors work,” Peggy said with a sigh, turning away from the vanity.

 

“For what?” Toni asked as she threw on her leather jacket.

 

“The perfect red lipstick,” Peggy answered over her shoulder as she left the room, leaving Toni to scramble after her, pulling on socks and shoes in between going down sets of stairs attempting to keep up with the woman.

 

There was a car waiting out front for them, with an unknown driver.

 

“Toni, this is Timothy Dugan. Dugan, this is my goddaughter, Toni Stark,” Peggy introduced the driver.

 

“Call me Dum Dum,” he said with an honest smile and a wave.

 

He was an old man, with a white handlebar mustache and friendly blue eyes. Toni smiled back at him as she crawled into the backseat.

 

“Scrawny thing, ain’t she?” he asked Peggy as she gracefully slid into the front passenger seat.

 

“I’m going to teach her how to shoot a gun,” Peggy told him.

 

“Really?” Toni asked, poking her head between the two front seats. Dum Dum smiled at her.

 

“Buckle up, kiddo” Peggy ordered.

 

Toni sat back and buckled herself into the middle seat. They drove north. She watched as the New York City traffic turned into trees and grass.

 

“Where are we?” Toni asked as the car pulled onto a side road that ended at what looked to be a high-security checkpoint.

 

Peggy and Dum Dum held out badges for the guard to see. He was all straight lines, with his crisp suit and posture. He wore black sunglasses that hid his eyes, and he saluted them as the gate opened.

 

“Whoa,” Toni said. She didn’t know if it was the way the guard acted, or to the beauty of architecture that was the building in front of her.

 

“Pretty, ain’t she?” Dum dum asked.

 

“What is this place?” Toni asked, eyes still cataloging her surroundings.

 

“It’s where you are going to learn to shoot a gun,” Peggy told her.

 

Toni nodded, taking the half-lie-half-truth for what it was.

 

Peggy lead them through the front door, and past the lobby. They entered the elevator that had 55 buttons, four of which were for lower levels. Peggy hit the L2 button, and the elevator started going down.

 

“Why does your name sound familiar?” Toni asked Dum Dum.

 

He smiled down at her.

 

“Worked with your father for a long while, before that I worked with Captain America,” he explained.

 

Toni ran a hand over the name on her skin. She tried for nonchalant, but she caught Peggy watching her hand.

 

“Father says that Captain America was the greatest thing he ever had a hand in creating,” Toni said as she fiddled with the collar of her shirt.

 

She watched, out of the corner of her eye, as the two shared a look.

 

The elevator slowed and made a dinging sound as the doors opened. Toni followed the two out onto the floor. There was a table full of different kinds of guns on her right, and five rows of lanes on her left.

 

“By the time we’re done today, you’ll be an expert,” Dum Dum told her.

 

She didn’t doubt him.

 

“We’ve got a good mix here,” Dum Dum said, waving his arm at the table, “some of them are mine, some are Peggy’s.”

 

“Let’s start with handguns,” Peggy picked up the three smallest guns and pointed Toni to the first lane.

 

The first was a Beretta 92. It was elegant in it’s all black casing with round edges. It had an even weight in her hand and a 15-round mag. Next was a Glock. According to Dum Dum, A semi-automatic polymer handgun designed by a man who had no prior experience with firearms. Still black, yet it had more of a hard feel with its corners and minimal moving parts. The last was a Walther P38. It was an older gun, designed to eject the bullet casings to the left and across the shooter’s field of vision, rather than the right like the other guns.

 

They practiced until Toni felt comfortable with each type. Then, they moved on to submachine guns. Again, there were three variations.

 

“There might be a time in your life when you need to defend yourself,” Peggy told her.

 

The first was a Koch MP5. Easily modifiable, Dum Dum had called it. A mini Uzi was next. Taller than it was long, made it balanced differently in her hand. Peggy let her shoot a Tommy gun, an old throwback to the Prohibition era, while she told stories of adventures from when she and Dum Dum were younger.

 

They moved on to what Toni had been looking forward to all day. Rifles. The two had seven different versions of the AK rifle and quarreled on which one was the best.

 

“Good enough for Bucky Barnes, the great gun enthusiast, good enough for me,” Dum Dum said, as he held out the AK-47 to Toni.

 

She lined the gun up with the target. It weighed a little heavy in her hand.

 

“Breath in when you aim, and out when your fire,” Peggy whispered in her ear.

 

Toni fired off a few rounds from the gun, then pulled off her goggles and earmuffs to examined it.

 

“I can do better,” she told them.

 

“Sweetie, you did well, especially for the first time,” Peggy said, looking at the target Toni had shot. A few bullets had missed the mark by a good number of inches. A few had landed where she aimed, a kill shot.

 

“No,” Toni said, shaking her head. “The gun. The way it's built. I can do better.”

 

Toni didn’t get to start scribbling down ideas and plans, like she had wanted to do as soon as the thought of re-engineering had entered her mind, until much later that day when she got home. Instead, she was whisked upstairs by her mother and a team of people. They spent the next two hours poking, prodding her, and repeatedly telling her to stay still until her hair painfully pulled into an updo, and shimmied into an evening dress of dark red and tulle.

 

“Tonight, we are going as a family to the Met Gala,” her mother told her.

 

This year the theme was ‘dancing to a classic,’ and Toni looked like a gothic ballerina in pastel pink and black.

 

They arrived at the red carpet three hours later. Her mother’s hand wrapped around Howard’s arm. Her other hand had a tight grip on Toni’s wrist.

Her mother was in a shoulderless dress, with long sleeves and a train. It was a pearl color that shimmered in the light. Her mother never wore long sleeves, and for a brief moment, Toni wondered if they had matching bruises.

 

“Pretty girl,” said a woman, Janet Van Dyne as her mother introduced. “Shame Howard is so set on turning her into his perfect heir. She would have made a lovely wife for a lucky man.”

 

“There is still time,” her mother replied, patting Toni lightly on the shoulder, "How is your little Hope doing?"

Toni shot her a look, which the woman ignored. The woman drank cocktails that bubbled, and they eyed the room like predators looking for prey. Toni stood next to them, trying to see what they saw.

 

“Did you see Vanderbilt?” Mrs. Van Dyne asked. “Rumor has it her husband is about to be brought up on charges of corporate espionage, and, oh darling, does it show. Did you see what she was wearing?”

 

“Poor dear, they’re going to take her to the bank for everything he’s worth,” her mother said, as she lightly slapped Toni’s crossed arms.

 

“Straighten up,” her mother whispered in her ear.

 

“Are you worried about Howard?” Mrs. Van Dyne asked, gesturing slightly with her chin towards the man.

 

“Never,” her mother replied, even though they were all watching her husband wrap an arm around a young blonde. “Howard knows better. The moment he leaves me is the same moment he ceases to matter to anyone,” her mother said evenly.

 

“What is that suppose to mean?” Toni asked, tugging on her mother’s arm in a way she hadn't done since before boarding school.

 

“We’re going to make the rounds,” her mother made their excuses to the other woman politely as she slid her arm around Toni’s waist and pulled her close.

 

“Behave like a lady, for once in your life,” her mother scolded.

 

“So that a man will marry me?” Toni challenged.

 

Her mother pulled a glass of bubbly off a passing waiter's tray and handed it to her.

 

“Men will always want something from you, Tesorina. The question is what you want from them. Look at Gloria Vanderbilt, the woman in the in the orange dress talking to the Director of the FBI. She’s not chatting with him because she finds him an interesting conversationalist. No, she's friendly in hopes that he will give her a warning before the shit in her life hits the fan.”

 

Her mother spun them to face a new direction. Toni struggled not to let any alcohol spill.

 

“We also have Leta Zambini, in the skin tight black dress,” her mother tilted her head towards the model-like woman currently dancing across the floor. “The pages will jokingly call her ‘dressed to kill’ in tomorrow's edition. But she just buried her seventh husband a few months ago, and the man she’s talking to is the seventh richest man in the world. A few feet from her in the god-awful yellow is Frida Kempner, quietly campaigning for her husband’s upcoming reelection.”

 

"That's awful," Toni whispered.

 

"She wasn't born with a soulmark, so she finds her fun where she can," her mother then turned Toni to face her.

 

“My point is that you are a woman. You are the daughter, and heir, to the Stark fortune. Be picky about whom you choose to care about. Everyone you ever meet will want something from you. They will take and take and take until there is nothing left for you to give. Be smart about who you let into your life. They will be there for only as long as you have something to give them,” she explained.

 

“That’s a pretty cynical view on the world,” Toni said, taking another sip of her drink.

 

Her mother gave her a pitying look.

 

“You don’t have an option, my dear. No one is going to take a girl playing with guns seriously. You have to be more. You have to be better. You have to play the game. Play it to win.”

 

"What game?" Toni asked.

 

Her mother smiled down at her, “The game of life. You think Howard built his empire alone? No. I pulled strings. I rubbed shoulders with politician's wives and statesmen alike. I got him the military contracts because it came with an invitation to my party. I got investors for him because their wives thought my company at Sunday brunch would get talked about on page 6. The elite control our world. Be one of them, Tesorina, or be ruled by them.”


	7. The Genius

The night of the Met Gala ended with little fanfare, as did what was left of Toni’s naivete. She watched her mother smile at slimy politicians, and her father stick his tongue down the throat of a young blonde bimbo.

 

Toni took a cab home alone and watched the early morning cracks of sunlight bounce off the large buildings as they drove through the Upper East Side Manhattan.

 

There was today’s copy of People Magazine and a plate of fruit waiting on the kitchen table for her when she got home. ‘The Stark Surprise,’ the magazine called her. She flipped through the pages until the got to the centerspread. “The 15-year-old Stark Heir shocked the world with her public debut,” the article tagline read, and halfway down the page in big bold letters were the words, “A good girl going places’, a gentleman at the Gala commented on the heir to the Stark Legacy, Antonia Stark.”

 

Toni tossed the paper aside and ate her breakfast in silence. She spent the rest of the day, and the next three, tinkering in her make-shift lab at the family’s country manor. She only resurfaced after she had entirely invented her own version of the personal computer, a first with an on-chip graphics capabilities microprocessor. By the end of the day, her father weaponized it and sold it to the military, with a passing word of acknowledgment of her as the creator.

 

Meanwhile, Ford Modeling Agency had called, and Jarvis handed the phone to her mother. A public persona was created for Toni, and dates for photo shoots were arranged. After she emerged from her lab, Toni was chaperoned to shoot after shoot, and interview after interview. Each one left her a little more tired and a bit more hollow.

 

"The American Princess," they call her. "The War Heiress, her father's daughter."

 

Again, she would smile with precisely applied red lipstick.

 

She was never left alone, never trusted to be on her own, not until it was time for her to return to campus.

 

Life Magazine hit the stands after New Years. Toni was on the cover wearing a red dress. The centerfold was a piece on the Stark family. The magazine called them ‘All-American,’ - a business magnate, his philanthropist wife, and their up-and-coming daughter.

 

“It’s all lies, jelly bean,” she told Rhodey as she threw the magazine on the floor. “My mother’s not even American. She was born in Sicily and married my father for a bonus visa.”

 

Rhodey shrugged his shoulders and poured her more Captain Crunch cereal. They rented a small house together for the rest of the school year at MIT. It was a four bedroom three bath, with a patio. It was located right off of campus, but still on the bus route that could get them to class.

 

Rhodey laughed at her, a real full belly laugh of pure ridiculousness when he found out she had her laundry outsourced, and then taught her how to fold a towel correctly. ‘Look at that military grade, clean cut, corners.' She thanked him by upgrading the living room to surround sound without telling him, then laughed at him, a tremendous breathless fall-of-the-couch laugh, when he jumped in fear while watching Top Gun.

 

“Does it ever bother you?” Toni asked, flopping down on the couch next to Rhodey.

 

He's three pages of Flight Vehicle Development homework sat half done on the coffee table in front of him as they both watched the movie, “Does what bother me?”

 

“My age, the lack of grade curves in the classes we share, the…” she waved an erratic hand at herself, “Me?”

 

He rolled his eyes at her, as she went and fetched a water bottle.

 

"No. It doesn’t bother me. You don’t bother me. You're the closest thing I’ve got to a little sister. I'm rooting for you, against anything - I'm rooting for you. But at the same time, I know if I turn my back for any long period, you'll try to overthrow the government of a small European country, or trying to create the world's first A.I. robot or something."

 

Toni scoffed, "Wouldn't that be something? You know, they're calling it 'A.I. Winter', because all the funding for research has dried up. No one believes it can be done."

 

“I don’t trust him,” Rhodey told her one morning.

 

She didn’t have to ask who, Tiberius Stone had left a few hours ago and she knew she had bruises and bite marks on her neck.

 

Toni shrugged her shoulders as she wiggled her toes under Rhodey's thigh, “He reminds me of everything my father wanted in an heir.”

 

“And nothing he got,” Rhodey nodded in understanding.

 

Toni signed staring at the closed front door, “Some days I want to be him.”

 

“I don’t,” Rhodey shook his head, “He’s happy now, but it’s too ceteris paribus. Everything he wants, given to him on a silver platter. That awesome while he’s a kid, but one day he’s going to have to grow up. I don't envy that wake-up call at all.”

 

Things stayed like that for a while; her and Rhodey in cahoots as they tackled MIT, her growing modeling career with a burgeoning cult following on the side, and them hanging out in the labs whenever they could.

 

Because, of course, she got Rhodey addicted to making things better. Is the door squeaking? Is the pantry not big enough? Is the food not cold enough in the fridge? Does the food take forever to cook in the oven? They upgraded everything they could.

 

Their relatively small placed might have looked like a mad scientist's den when they were through, with cords and wires running every which direction, but they were happy.

 

Toni taught Rhodey that practicality was not a limit to imagination, and Rhodey taught Toni how to kick ass and take names.

She had flinched, one day, at him. It was innocent. Rhodey had been reaching for the cabinet, next to her head, for a glass. Toni had jerked to the side, out of arm's length of him. He stood there, with one arm still poised at the door of the cabinet and watched her.

 

She watched him back as the thoughts dance across his eyes. He nodded once, maybe to himself, perhaps to her. Then, got himself a glass of water and went into the living room.

 

She followed him in and stood in the doorway as he cleared an ample space in the center. He had pushed the couches and the coffee table against the wall and rolled up the rug.

 

He then turned towards her. He motioned for her to come towards him. Rhodey showed her how to make a fist, and where to place her thumb so she wouldn’t break it. He showed her where to aim for on a person. He showed her how to position her feet to get the best leverage to hit harder.

 

“Don’t throw up your hands unless you are ready to fight,” Rhodey told her, “Then when you do actually decide to fight, you mean it. You fight and fight and fight until the fighting is over–until you won.”

 

“And if I never win?” Toni asked.

 

He laughed, “C’mon, Steel Magnolia, you’d win, one way or another. You’d figure out how to win. I’ve seen you outsmart professors, and turn legendary final exams into doodles because they bored you. Fighting isn’t about being the strongest. It’s about being the most cunning. So square your shoulders, watch your breathing, and fight.”

 

Eventually, they signed up for a membership at the gym. Rhodey would pound on her bedroom door at asscrack o'clock in the morning and drag her out for a morning workout.

 

"What made you ever think this was a good idea?" Toni asked on the third day.

 

"My dad," Rhodey answered in a rare non-snarky moment. "When I was in high school we used to get up early in the morning to go for a run."

 

"Voluntary?" Toni asked.

 

Rhodey laughed between hits on the punching bag, "Yeah, but that was just how he was. He was a Major for the Air Force. His plane went down somewhere over Cambodia."

 

"That really sucks, I'm sorry," Toni said quietly.

 

Rhodey shrugged his shoulders, "The government didn't give us any details, but Dad was complaining about the state of the planes they had available to fly."

 

"You think it was a faulty plane?"

 

"Boeing B-52 Stratofortress," Rhodey answered with a shrug of his shoulders, "I think my dad did what needed to be done. He's my hero, you know? He's why I am here."

 

"You want to be just like him?" Toni asked.

 

"Don't you?" Rhodey asked instead, before turning back to his workout.


	8. The Third

Toni Stark was on top of the world. Her face was everywhere from the cover of Vogue and Forbes Magazine to billboards advertising the latest Stark product. She was the face of Versace and walked for Valentino. She had built up clout in her father’s company as his worthy predecessor, taught by Howard Stark, himself.

 

Toni Stark was on top of the world when, in a single night, it shattered beneath her.

 

It all started with an itch.

 

She had just sat down with her parents for a rare dinner with the whole family together. It was one of those rare times when they were all at the manor at the same time. It was the first day of winter break of her last semester at MIT.

 

Her father had a plane to catch to D.C. in a few hours. It was all about this mysterious project he had been working on for the last year. He refused to talk about it with anyone, not even her. Now since it is complete, he refused to let anyone see it, choosing to deliver it to the Secretary of Defense himself.

 

The lobster had just been served, and the empty salad plates removed, when the itching began. It was one of those itches like under jeans, that no matter how much scratching there was never any relief. This time it was on her hip. Toni tried to keep her shoulders still as she raked her nails across the itch.

 

Her parents continued to trade thinly veiled quips at one another.

 

“It’s happening again,” she wanted to tell them, “and I’m scared,” she wanted to confess. “Will this one be a big dark secret, like the other one?” she wanted to scream and mock the lengths her parents insisted on going to cover up the good captain's name.

 

“Will this make me stranger?” she wanted to know.

 

One soul mark was uncommon in this day and age. Two was downright unforgivable.

 

Instead, she said, “Lovely wine, mother,” as she took another sip of an old Italian vintage of which she didn’t bother remembering the name. Her father didn’t drink the wine. He preferred his five glasses of scotch.

 

Instead, she asked about their plans for the winter holiday. Instead, she let them carry the conversation about drinks on the rooftop bar in D.C. and what her mother is wearing for the season’s big social events.

 

“When I get home,” her father began between bites of overly buttered lobster, “we’ll take another look at the arc reactor.”

 

Her mother made a noise of annoyance from her spot at the other end of the table. Her father took another drink from his glass and ignored the woman.

 

Toni spun her half-drunken glass of wine by the stem of the glass against the ivory clothed table. Her other arm dug into the itch on her side.

 

“There is something we’re missing. I know there is. The math is there. We just aren’t seeing it,” Toni's father continued.

 

“Honestly Howard,” her mother said, rolling her eyes at his ‘business talk’ at the table.

 

Toni heard the thud of her mother’s wine glass hitting table. Toni looked up to see her mother pat her lips with the matching cloth napkin and lay it smoothly back in her lap.

 

“You’re working her too hard. She’s not some robot that can crank out inventions to feed your company’s profits,” her mother said.

 

“And what would you have her do?” he snarled as he slammed down his glass. “Settle down with some boy and waste away trying to push out a son, like you attempted to do?”

 

Her mother went rigid.

 

Toni looked down at her plate. She watched as she cut the asparagus into an unnecessary amount of small bites. She traced the Fibonacci spiral into her mashed potatoes.

 

“You really think someone’s going to marry her? With a soul mark of a dead man? You parade her around from event to event, for what? You think if you make her pretty enough, important enough, known as high society–that someone will overlook the fact that she’s damaged goods?”

 

“She is sitting right here,” Toni said, letting her silver utensils clang against her plate, “and doing just fine for herself, being ‘damaged goods’ and all.”

 

“And what would Captain America think of you?” her father asked. “A stubborn loudmouth whore?”

 

Toni reared back violently. She pushed her chair back as she stood up, letting it fall to the floor behind her.

 

“Yes, I’ve seen the tabloids, you and that boy running around. A selfish, greedy little girl,” her father stood up and rounded the corner of the table.

 

“Howard, that’s enough,” her mother said, still seated gracefully at the other end of the table.

 

“Clinging to everything I built. It was supposed to be for a son! For the perfect heir you were meant to be,” her father yelled.

 

He had his hand wrapped around her upper arm.

 

“If you had been a son, do you know what we could have done? How far we could have gone?” He’s in her face, screaming, with an arm clamped down on her.

 

“Instead, I got you, a daughter that was going to let it all waste away,” he said. His voice was quieter, sharper. “Captain America could have had anyone. He could have had Peggy Carter. Instead, he got you.”

 

He pushed her off to the side, like something discarded.

 

Toni landed weird on her wrist, and her face slammed into the chair she had been sitting in at dinner.

 

“Howard, it’s time to leave,” her mother said, sparing her a glance as she pulled her father out the room.

 

Toni watched them leave from her spot on the floor. The door slammed, and the car engine out front roared to life. There was a stifling stillness to the room. She set the chair upright again and used it to pull herself off the floor. She looked over at the table full of broken lobster shells and smeared mashed potatoes.

 

The butler knocked on the door as he opened it.

 

“Ready for dessert, miss?” he asked her, as he looked around. “Did they leave already?”

 

Toni poured what was left of her mother’s wine into her own glass.

 

“Dinner is over. Would it be a problem to have my dessert upstairs at a later time?” Toni asked.

 

“Of course, miss,” the butler said.

 

Toni left the room, and walked up the stairs and hallways, into her room, into the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it, before yanking her shirt over her head to stare at the mirror.

 

With a shaking hand, she traced the letters imprinted across her hip.

 

“James Buchanan Barnes”

 

“Look at that,” Toni murmured to herself as she ran a hand over the names, “a complete fucking set.”


	9. The Liar

Toni Stark was on top of the world. She wanted for nothing.

 

She grew up eating with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her father was CEO of his own corporation and had his hand in many different financially lucrative pies. Her mother made a name for herself, shaking hands and collecting favors from everyone worth knowing. Toni was given everything she wanted, from a modeling career to an education by the world’s most renowned inventor.

 

Toni Stark was on top of the world when, in a single night, it shattered beneath her.

 

“Miss,” a butler said with a knock as he opened the door to her bedroom, “Dame Peggy Carter is at the door asking for you.”

 

Toni let out a loud huff of air and pushed the fluffy comforter off her. The door clicked shut with the butler taking her non-answer as an acknowledgment. Tony turned to the digital clock on her bedside table. In bright red letters, it read ‘December 17, 1991, 3:45 Tuesday morning’. With a groan, Toni crawled out of bed and threw on a robe over her pajamas.

 

Peggy Carter was sitting with a cup of tea in the drawing room by the time Toni arrived. She had a box of tissues sitting on the table and a pile of used ones growing on the couch next to her. This version of the woman sitting before her, with mascara, smeared down her left cheek and her eyeliner almost wiped away, was the most frazzled she had ever seen her aunt.

 

“Wow, who died?” Toni asked as she flopped on the couch next to the woman.

 

Toni propped her feet up onto the coffee table in front of them and leaned towards Peggy to rest her head on the older woman’s shoulder.

 

Peggy stayed silent.

 

Toni dropped her feet to the ground and spun to face her aunt. Toni looked the woman over. She was in her usual pantsuit with a basic white button-down. It was all professional and clean cut, other than the clumped dirt on her shoes and the rumpled way her suit jacket hung on her.

 

“Peggy?” Toni asked with a hesitant voice.

 

The woman took a deep breath as if to still herself for battle. Toni had seen her do that, every time she was about to disagree with her father.

 

“I’m sorry,” Peggy said looking Toni in the eye, “I am so sorry, Toni.”

 

Peggy reached out and grabbed Toni’s hand, keeping it in a firm grip.

 

“Peggy,” Toni repeated. Her voice hitched, but she didn’t know why.

 

She didn’t want to know why.

 

Peggy licked her dry lips. Her eyes darted to their hands clasped in Toni’s lap, and then back to Toni’s face.

 

“Your parents were in a car crash late last night,” Peggy said, ripping off the band-aid. “Neither survived.”

 

Toni shook her head as if refusing the news.

 

“You’re lying,” Toni accused. “You’re lying to me, and this isn’t funny.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Peggy repeated as her own eyes began to water.

 

Toni shook her head. She got up from the couch and slowly backed away from Peggy.

 

“No,” Toni denied again, “We had plans. My father- My mother- They wouldn’t… He wouldn’t just crash his car. He wouldn’t…”

 

Strong arms wrapped around her, but Toni fought.

 

“You’re going to be okay,” Peggy said into her temple.

 

Toni tried to push her off, put Peggy wouldn’t let go.

 

“You’re lying,” she breathed out through the tears and burning lungs. “They wouldn’t…”

 

“You’re going to be okay. I promise,” Peggy told her, over and over again.

 

Toni didn’t know how long they stood there, in the drawing room of the Stark mansion in New York City. With Peggy’s arms wrapped tightly around her as she cried. It wasn’t until the sun started streaming through the front windows, and the front door of the house opening, that Toni came back to herself.

 

“What is going on?” Toni asked Peggy as men in suits stormed her house.

 

“They’re here to follow out Howard’s contingency plan,” Peggy said.

 

Toni pulled back from her.

 

“Who are they?” Toni asked.

 

Peggy attempted to pull her close again.

 

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Peggy said,

 

“What do they want,” Toni asked.

 

“They are here to take a few things into custody for safekeeping,” Peggy explained.

 

“They want the Tesseract?” Toni asked, arching her back to watch the men search her house through the doorway of the drawing room, over Peggy’s shoulder.

 

Peggy nodded, “Among other things.”

 

“No,” Toni snarled, shoving hard against Peggy. “The Tesseract belonged to my father. He fished it out of the ocean. He had plans–You can’t just take his things!”

 

Toni turned and fled the room to her father’s lab. The door was left open as six men in suits turned the place over. It was a mess. Her father’s notes were scattered on the floor, and his meticulously organized tools laid in a disordered pile on one of the workbenches.

 

“Get out!” Toni screamed from the door.

 

Peggy came up behind Toni and wrapped her arms around Toni’s shoulders. In any other moment, Toni would have viewed it as a hug. At this moment, she wanted the woman to leave.

 

“Let them do their jobs,” Peggy said quietly into Toni’s ear.

 

“They are stealing my father’s work, and you want me to sit back and let it happen?” Toni asked teary-eyed and struggled to get out of Peggy’s arms.

 

“They aren’t stealing it. We’re going to protect it. Your father was working on some complicated and dangerous thing. We want everything to be safe,” Peggy told her as the men started packing a few things up.

 

The men had a special briefcase for the Tesseract, and another for the loose papers and two of her father’s journals. They packed up and made to leave the room.

 

Toni wiggled her way out of Peggy’s arms and into the path of the only exit out of the room.

 

“Put it all back where you found it,” Toni ordered.

 

Toni attempted to steal the notebook on top, but the suit made a weird spin-dodge move out of her reach.

 

“Daddy isn’t here to grant your every wish anymore, princess,” the closest suit said as he shouldered past her, “Move so I can do my job.”

 

“That is enough, Agent,” Peggy barked.

 

Toni spun around to face Peggy, “They’re with you!” Tony yelled, “You let them in. You–Get out. Get out of my house, and take your handsy minions with you.”

 

“Toni,” Peggy said, then stopped.

 

“Get out of my house!” Toni yelled, getting in her face.

 

Peggy watched her for a moment with an unreadable look on her face. But, she left all the same, hesitantly and with many looks back over her shoulder at Toni. But she went. Toni didn’t know whether to be thankful or angry at that, too.

 

Toni wanted to cry. She wanted to break down and scream at the unfairness of it all. But she couldn’t. It felt like someone had pulled the plug on her emotions, she couldn’t feel anything. A numbness had washed over her as she stood in the doorway of her father’s lab and watched Peggy and a team of agents in suits leave with her father’s most treasured research.

 

It was this numbness that let her turn towards the lab, her lab now, and take a seat at the desk her father used to write down his findings. Toni pulled out an empty sheet of paper and pencil. Then spent the rest of the day recreating the notes from what she could remember of her father’s lectures.

 

Obadiah Stane was the only one to drop by to see her.

 

“I’ll take care of everything,” he promised with a hand on her shoulder. “Your father was one of my best friends. I’ll do right by him, and by you. Don’t worry about anything.”

 

She thanked him. He smiled down at her and patted her shoulder. Then he left her to her own devices without her having to ask. It was the start of something, Toni thought. Trust, maybe. She let him carry the burden of what to do now, with her parents, with the company she didn’t know how to run, with everything.

 

Toni Stark was on top of the world. She had everything. She wanted for nothing.

 

But that was yesterday. Today, Toni's emotionally dried up, with a long list of things she wants. Her parents, home safe and sound, is at the top of the list. The second on the list?

 

Toni picked up her phone and dialed a number,

 

“Tiberius?” she said as soon as the other end picked up the phone, “Help me, please. I don’t want to think anymore.”


	10. The Orphan

She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She didn’t shed another tear after Peggy left. There was a numbness that had set deep in her bones. She didn’t care.

 

  
“They’re dead,” she mumbled into a glass of her father’s favorite scotch.

 

She was sitting on the corner of her bed, watching her reflection in the vanity mirror across the room. She had been up since a little before four in the morning, and it showed. Her eyes were red-rimmed from her freakout in Peggy’s arms. Her hair was frizzy, and half pulled out of the braid she usually wore to bed. She was still wearing her pajamas and had lost her robe somewhere between seeing Peggy and collapsing on her bed.

 

“I know,” Tiberius said, from where he was laying on her tall pile of pillows underneath the sheer canopy at the head of her bed.

 

Tiberius Stone had shown up at her house not even 20 minutes after she called him. He was dressed head to toe in black, a button down and slacks. He took one look at her and poured them each a glass from her father’s stash in his office. It was just past seven o’clock in the morning, but she downed the whole glass of scotch all the same. Just like how her father used to drink it.

 

Then, she dragged Tiberius pass the all of the staff and people roaming around the manor to her room.

 

They were on their third bottle now.

 

“Someone with maturity would tell you to savor the nice stuff,” Tiberius said as she took another swallow.

 

Toni let out a sigh and gracefully uncurled down next to him on the bed. She stole his half-full glass of scotch from where it was resting on his stomach as he laid on her pillows and downed that, too.

 

“They’re dead,” Toni repeated as she tossed the empty glass back at him.

 

“Yepp,” Tiberius said. He caught the glass and set it on the side table next to him. He scooted down lower on the bed to lay next to her, linking his arms behind his head. “Is this some form of shock or something, you repeating that phrase over and over again?”

 

“It just– I don’t– They are– They were my parents!” Toni stuttered with a yell. Toni grabbed a pillow and hit him with it. “Asshole. They were my parents, and now they’re gone!”

 

“I know–”

 

“No!” Toni jumped up from the bed and threw another pillow off the bed at her reflection in the vanity mirror. The pillow knocked over her collection of perfumes and dumped her makeup all over her pristine white carpet. She stared at the mess for a moment, before turning to pace her room.

 

“No, you don’t know,” Toni growled at him. “You don’t know how my father demanded I build what he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted. You don’t know how loud, how violent, he got when things didn’t go his way. You don’t know how my mother played games with everyone she met, including me! You don’t know how controlling and paranoid she used to get over me and what I was doing. You don’t know T!” Toni sank down to the carpet of her room and hugged her knees, “They’re dead, and they were my parents. I miss them, and I hate them equally, with every fiber of my being.”

 

She felt Tiberius sit down next to her. He slowly put an arm around her and pulled her close.

 

“What does it say about me?” she asked, her voice muffled by his muscular chest. “That a part of me hates my dead parents?”

 

“You’re allowed to hate whoever you want. Just because those two were your parents, doesn’t mean they get a free pass,” Tiberius muttered with his mouth pressed against her temple.

 

“And my soulmates–,” Tony said, coughing to cover up the accidental plural of the last word. “Everyone who supposed to love and care about me is dead.”

 

“Hate him too. Hate them all you want,” Tiberius said.

 

He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. He tasted like overpriced alcohol and smelled like tobacco and hints of her perfume. Tony leaned into him, letting him run his hands up her side and down her back.

 

He stood up, picking her up as he did. He carried her back to her bed, grabbing the fourth bottle as passed the collection of commandeered stash.

 

Hours later, when they are both boneless and thoroughly debauched, Toni turned to face him.

 

“Tomorrow,” Toni said, running a hand down his bare stomach as he lit a cigarette. “The whole world is going to mourn my parents like they were some saintly heroes, and I’ll hate them for it, too.”

 

<hr>

Passing of a Titan: Howard and Maria Stark died in Car Crash

“...leaving 17-year-old, Antonia Stark as the sole heir of the Stark Estate…”

<hr>

 

The funeral was tasteful. It was early in the morning at a local church that Toni was sure neither of her parents had ever attended. But the dark red roses were pretty, and the pallbearers were strong. Toni’s only complaint was the people.

 

“How much longer?” Toni whispered to Rhodey as he stood off to the side behind her.

 

He was there, in a black on black on black suit. With his broad shoulders and hard stare, he looked like a perfect cross between a bodyguard and a grim reaper. Fitting, Toni thought, for her parent’s funeral.

 

“Say the word,” he whispered at the same time Jarvis answered, “Until everyone has left.”

 

“Antonia,” a Senator named whatever from the great state of wherever greeted her, shaking her hand. “I am terribly sorry for your loss.”

 

“Aren’t we all,” Toni said shortly.

 

Undeterred, the man went on, “Your father and I had been discussing a few business ventures in Chicago. If I could get on your calendar, I would love to–”

 

“Senator Wilkes!” Obie said merrily, coming up behind the man, “Howard was telling me all about his plans to put the CTA railway to shame.”

 

Obie steered the man away from her, to which she was grateful.

 

“I hate this,” she whispered as the next person approached with fake kindness and an unimpressive handshake.

 

“As do I, miss,” Jarvis agreed.

 

The next man to approach her was hesitant. He was a tall man who looked comfortable in a suit but not in the large company of the funeral. He had slicked black hair and was built like a muscle man.

 

“Your mother,” the man began.

 

He was the first to talk to Toni solely about her mother.

 

“She was good people. She did me a favor, basically saved my life, and, uh, I owe her. So, if you ever need anything and, I mean anything–you call me.”

 

He held out a card to her. Toni stared at it, as Jarvis took it from the man.

 

“Happy?” Jarvis asked reading the name of the card.

 

“Harold Hogan,” the man said. “But everyone calls me ‘Happy.'”

 

“Why’s that?” Rhodey asked.

 

“Always happy to do a job,” the man shrugged.


	11. The Last Creation

* * *

**Out of Control: Stark Heiress drunk at parent's funeral**

“...inside sources at the funeral for Howard and Maria Stark claim they saw Antonia Stark stumbling out of the ceremony with half a bottle of vodka in her hand…”

* * *

 

The next morning found Toni in mismatched pajamas, with a trash bag in one hand and a half-empty beer bottle in the other.

 

“You don’t have to stay,” Toni said, dropping the bottle in the trash.

 

“I don’t have to go either,” Ana Jarvis said, swiftly clearing the coffee table of all its trash.

 

“Howard is dead. Whatever you two owed him, ” Toni was interrupted from finishing her thought by Ana pulling the bag out of Toni’s hands.

 

“Did you know I taught you to walk?” Ana asked. “You were always such a curious thing. From the moment you opened your eyes, you wanted to explore the world. You liked being picked up, seeing the world from a different angle. It used to drive your parents crazy, but Edwin always humored you. He’d stop what he was doing and pick up. I thought teaching you to walk, letting you do the exploring, would make life as your care-taker a little easier.” Ana laughed. “Instead I’vespent every moment of my life since then trying to catch up with you.”

 

“But, why–” Toni started before she even knew what to ask.

 

“I stayed because of you. I owed Howard a debt, and I paid it–many times over. But I stayed for you, for a talented young girl who never failed to thank me for something as simple as doing my job.”

 

“That’s a lot of faith in a girl who used to be scared of monsters under her bed,” Toni pointed out.

 

Ana shrugged, “You outright accused the monster under your bed of corporate espionage. How could I not want that little girl in my life?”

 

“And now?” Toni asked, her attention back to the leftover trash from the funeral after-party.

 

“Now I stay because that little girl grew up to be a skilled young woman with the world in the palm of her hand. I find myself curious about what she’ll do with it."

 

* * *

**Stark Folly**

“...Stark was seen out at different parties with different guys every night this week. Inside sources claim the recent heir of Stark industries is taking full advantage of her new independent status...

* * *

 

 

In the beginning, Toni thought she was okay. The first month after her parents’ funeral, she had been surrounded by people who loved her. It had been easy to let them be there, to keep her afloat.

 

But now she’s at the airport tucked under Rhodey’s arm as they walked amongst the bustling strangers trying to catch a flight.

 

“You are going to be here when I get back,” Rhodey stated evenly.

His voice was hard, but not cold. It was the way he got when he had emotions he didn’t know what to do with or how to handle.

 

“Nowhere else in the world I’d rather be, honey-bunches,” Toni said, squeezing his waist with the arm she had wrapped around him.

 

Rhodey stopped walking and turned to face her putting his hands on her shoulders, but didn’t say anything. The security checkpoint wasn’t far from them, and the bustling holiday travelers around them weren’t forgiving in the pair’s sudden stop. Neither of them cared, though.

 

“You’ll get in trouble if you miss your flight,” Toni said, almost having to yell over the noise. “Does your C.O. have a mustache that bounces when he yells, like the movie stereotype?”

 

“No, but he’s got scars on his face that remind me of snake trails in the desert,” Rhodey played along. “For some reason it always makes me think of deliciously salty fries."

 

“You come home,” Toni began, “And I’ll be here, at the terminal, waiting for you–with a burger and fries.”

 

Rhodey stared at her.

 

“Cheeseburger? With mayonnaise and a milkshake?” he finally asked.

 

“This isn’t a negotiation, platypus,” Toni said, crossing her arms.

 

“Only because you’re horrible at negotiations,” Rhodey rolled his eyes.

 

He swung an arm around her shoulder and tugged her back to walking.

 

“I am not,” Toni all put stomped her foot indignantly as they walked.

 

“Name a time when you truly had to negotiate for what you wanted, and won,” Rhodey said.

 

“Easy,” Toni scoffed. “There was that time with the-”

 

“That I didn’t help you with,” Rhodey cut in.

 

Toni rolled her eyes at him, “Well, then there was that time at-”

 

“Offering the Chief Operations Manager at Disney World a half million dollars if he would let us cut all the lines -including the food line- does not count as good negotiation skills,” Rhodey said as they reached the security checkpoint.

 

“You weren’t complaining at the time,” Toni pointed out.

 

“Hey Tones,” Rhodey started after his chuckling faded.

 

“Yes Rhodes,” Toni said smiling up at him.

 

“You’re such a fucking gift,” Rhodey said, with a smile in his voice as he pulled her close to him.

 

He kissed Toni on the forehead and left her standing at the security gate as he passed through, heading back to base training.

 

Toni watched him leave.

 

* * *

**Toni Stark: Fit to Run Stark Industries?**

“...Military funding accounts for the majority of Stark Industries revenue. Will the late Howard Stark’s daughter have what it takes to play guns with the big boys…”

* * *

The first month was easy. Everyone was there with her. It was easy to convince herself that the world will keep spinning. Then Rhodey left, and reality started to trickle in without her consent.

 

“It’s just a door,” Mr. Stane said from behind her. “I know what’s on the other side is important, but you can’t let that stop you.”

 

“It’s just,” Toni hesitated, “It was his. It’s his office, his workspace, his area, and now he’s gone. He never liked me in his space without permission, but-”

 

“Howard was a golden goose, and his lab is the golden egg he left you. This is your legacy, Toni. It’s what you were born to do. So, open the door, clear off his desk to make room for your own, and finish what he started. Sit in his chair like you’ve got a birthright to the throne he created.”

 

Toni grabbed the doorknob and twisted, pushing to door open. It swung inward revealing Howard’s lab that now belongs all to her. With a gentle push from Mr. Stane, she walked in. The room was as she always remembered, littered with half-finished projects. Her father’s notes were scattered still on the floor from when the suits had stolen the Tesseract from her. Howard’s meticulously organized tools still looked too big in her hand.

 

There was a small picture taped to the wall by her father's desk. But her father wasn’t in the picture. It was of Maria holding a baby Toni. She must have been less than a year old. Both of them were smiling at the camera.

 

“Be honest with me, Obie,” Toni said as she pulled the picture from the wall. “Do you think I can be as good as him? He was a world-renowned inventor. He created so much for the world. He could pull ideas out of thin air and bring them to life, effortlessly, and I-” Toni cuts herself off.

 

“And you’re Toni freaking Stark,” Obie said, resting a hand on her shoulder as looked down at the picture in her hand. “I think it’s about time we told the world exactly what that means.”

 

He laid a rolled up blueprint in her hands, causing her almost to drop the picture. She left it on the desk that used to be her father’s. She took a few steps to a clean space on one of the workbenches to roll out the blueprint.

 

It was the design and measurements of a bomb, with an onboard targeting system.

 

“Howard’s last creation.”

 


End file.
